Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  Jesus was moved to put his pipes to his lips, and the sheep returned to him and followed him into the cavern in which they were to sleep that night.

  CHAP. XXIX.

  IT IS A great joy to return to thought after a long absence from it, and Jesus was not afraid, though once his conscience asked him if he were justified in yielding himself unreservedly to reason. A man’s mind, he answered, like all else, is part of the Godhead; and at that moment he heard God speaking to him out of the breeze. My beloved son, he said, we shall never be separated from each other again. And Jesus replied: not again, Father, for thou hast returned to me the God that I once knew in Nazareth and in the hills above Jericho, and lost sight of as soon as I began to read the Book of Daniel. How many, he asked himself, have been led by reading that book into the belief that they were the precursors of the Messiah? We know of Theudas and the Egyptian, and there were many others whose names have not reached us. But I alone believed myself to be the Messiah. He was astonished he could remember so great a sin and not fear God. But I cannot fear God, for I love God, he said; my God neither forgives nor punishes, and if we repent it should be for our own sakes and not to please God. Moreover, it must be well not to waste too much time in repentance, for it is surely better to understand than to repent. We learn through our sins. If it had not been for mine, I should not have learnt that quires and scrolls lead men from God, and that to see and hear God we have only to open our eyes and ears. God is always about us. We hear him in the breeze, and we find him in the flower. He is in these things as much as he is in man, and all things are equal in his sight; Solomon is no greater than Joshbekashar.

  He had not remembered the old shepherd, who had taught him all he knew about sheep, for many a day. It is nigh on five and forty years, he said to himself, since he called me to hold the ewes while he made them clean for the winter. It was in yon cave the flock was folded when I laid hands on the ewes for the first time and dragged them forward for him to clip the wool from the rumps. He could see in his memory each different ewe trotting away, looking as if she were thankful for the shepherd’s kind office towards her. There was something extraordinarily restful in his memory of old Joshbekashar, and to prolong it Jesus fell to recalling the old man’s words; and every little disjointed sentence raised up the old man before him. It was but three times that I held the ewes for him, so it cannot be much more than forty years since that first clipping. Now I come to think on it, the clipping befell on a day like to-day. We’ll clip our ewes to-day, and it was with a sense of memorial service in his mind that he called to young Jacob to come to his aid, saying: Joshbekashar’s flock was always folded in yon cave for this clipping, the only change is that I am the clipper and thou’rt holding them for me. There are forty-five to be clipped, and just the same as before each ewe will trot away into the field looking as if she were thankful at having been made clean for the winter. On these words both fell to their work, and the cunning hand spent no more than a minute over each. Stooping over ewes makes one’s back ache, he said, rising from the last one, using the very same words he heard forty years before from Joshbekashar: time brings back the past! he said. We repeat the words of those that have gone before while doing their work; and it is likely we are doing God’s work as well by making the ewes clean for the winter as by cutting their throats in the Temple. All the same stooping over ewes makes one’s back ache, he repeated, for the words evoked the old shepherd, and he waited for Jacob to answer in the words spoken by him forty years ago to Joshbekashar. Himself had forgotten his words, but he thought he would recognise them if Jacob were inspired to speak them. But Jacob kept silence for shame’s sake, for his hope was that the flock would be given to his charge as soon as old age obliged Jesus to join his brethren in the cenoby.

  Thou’lt be sorry for me, lad, I know that well, but thou hast begun to look forward to the time when thou’lt walk the hills at the head of the flock like another; it is but proper that thou shouldst, and it is but natural that the time should seem long to thee; but take on a little patience, this much I can vouch for, every bone in me was aching when I left the cavern this morning, and my sight is no longer what it was. Master Jesus, I’d as lief wait; the hills will be naught without thee. Dost hear me, Master? Jesus smiled and dropped back into his meditations and from that day onward very little sufficed to remind him that he would end his days in the cenoby reading the Scriptures and interpreting them. In the cenoby, he said, men do not think, they only read, but in the fields a shepherd need never lose sight of the thought that leads him. A good shepherd can think while watching his sheep, and as the flock was feeding in good order, he took up the thread of a thought to which he had become attached since his discovery that signs and sounds of God’s presence are never lacking on earth. As God’s constant companion and confidant he had come to comprehend that the world of nature was a manifestation of the God he knew in himself. I know myself, he said one day, but I do not know the God which is above, for he seems to be infinite; nor do I know nature, which is beyond me, for that, too, seems to run into infinite, but infinite that is not that of God. A few moments later it seemed to him he might look upon himself as an islet between two infinities. But to which was he nearer in eternity? Ah, if he knew that! And it was then that a conviction fell upon him that if he remained on the hills he would be able to understand many things that were obscure to him to-day. It will take about two years, he said, and then many things that are dark will become clear. Two infinites, God and nature. At that moment a ewe wandering near some scrub caught his attention. A wolf, he said, may be lurking there. I must bring her back; and he put a stone into his sling. A wolf is lurking there, he continued, else Gorbotha would not stand growling. Gorbotha, a golden-haired dog, like a wolf in build, stood snuffing the breeze, whilst Thema, his sister, sought her master’s hand. A moment after the breeze veered, bringing the scent to her, and the two dogs dashed forward into the scrub without finding either wolf or jackal lying in wait. All the same, he said, a wolf or a jackal must have been lying there, and not long ago, or else the dogs would not have growled and rushed to the onset as they did.

  They returned perplexed and anxious to their master, who resumed his meditation, saying to himself that if aching bones obliged him to return to the cenoby he would have to give up thinking. For one only thinks well in solitude and when one thinks for oneself alone; but in the cenoby the brethren think together. All the same my life on the hills is not over yet, and an hour later he put his pipes to his lips and led his flock to different hills, for, guided by some subtle sense, he seemed to divine the springing up of new grass; and the shepherds, knowing of this instinct for pasturage, were wont to follow him, and he was often at pains to elude them, for on no hillside is there grass enough for many flocks.

  My poor sheep, he said, as he watched them scatter over a grassy hillside. Ye’re happy this springtime for ye do not know that your shepherd is about to be taken from you. But he has suffered too much in the winter we’ve come out of to remain on the hills many more years. Before leaving you he must discover a shepherd that will care for you as well as I have done. Amos is dead; there is no one in the cenoby that understands sheep. Would ye had speech to counsel me. But tell me, what would ye say if I were to leave you in Jacob’s charge? He stood waiting, as if he expected the sheep to answer, and it was then it began to seem to Jesus he might as well entrust his flock to Jacob as to another.

  He had sent him out that morning with twenty lambs that were yet too young to run with the flock, and he now stood waiting for him, thinking that if he lost none between this day and the end of the summer, the flock might be handed over to him. Every young man’s past is tarnished, he continued, for he could not forget that Jacob had begun by losing his master’s dogs, two had been killed by panthers. Nor was this the only misfortune that had befallen him. Having heard that rain had fallen in the west, he set out for Cæsarea to redeem his credit, he hoped, but at the end of the fourth day he could find n
o cavern in which to fold his sheep, and he lay down in the open, surrounded by his flock, unsuspicious that a pack of wolves had been trailing him from cavern to cavern since he left the Jordan valley — the animals divining that their chance would come at last. It would have been better, Jacob said, if the wolves had fallen upon him, for after this disaster no one would employ him, and he had wandered an outcast, living on the charity of shepherds, sharing a little of their bread. But such charity could not last long and he would have had to sit with the beggars by the wayside above Jericho if Jesus had not given his lambs into his charge, by this act restoring to Jacob some of his lost faith in himself. He had gone away saying to himself: Jesus, who knows more than all the other shepherds put together, holds me to be no fool, and one day I’ll be trusted again with a flock. I’m young and can wait, and, who knows, Jesus may tell me his cure for the scab, and by serving him I may get a puppy when Thema has a litter. In such wise Jacob looked to Jesus and Thema for future fortune, and as he came over the ridge and caught sight of Jesus waiting for him, he said: call up thy dogs, Master, lest they should fall upon mine and upon me. Gorbotha has already risen to his feet and Thema is growling.

  Jesus laid his staff across their backs. What, will ye attack Jacob, he cried, and what be your quarrel with his dogs? Poor Syrian dogs, Jacob answered, that would be quickly killed by thine. If I had had dogs like Gorbotha and Thema the wolves would not —— But, Jacob, thou wouldst have lost thy dogs as well as thy sheep. What stand could any dogs make against a pack of wolves, and a shepherd without dogs is like a bird without wings, as Brother Amos used to say. Yes, that is just it, Jacob replied, struck by the aptness of the comparison. Thou art known, Jesus, to be the most foreseeing shepherd on the hills; but the flock would not have increased without thy dogs. Abdiel is great in his knowledge of dogs, and he told me that he had never known any like thine, Master. Come now, Thema, Jesus cried. Come, lie down here; lay thy muzzle against my knee. And growl not at Jacob or I’ll send thee away. So Abdiel spoke of my dogs! They are well enough, one can work with them. But I’ve had better dogs. Whereupon Jesus told a story how one night he had lain under a fair sky to sleep and had slept so soundly that the rain had not wakened him, but Boreth — that was the dog’s name — distressed at the sight of me lying in the rain, began to lick my face, and when I had wrung out my cloak he led me to a dry cave unknown to me, though I thought I knew every one in these hills. He must have gone in search of one as soon as it began to rain, and when he found a dry one he came back to awaken me. More faithful dogs, he said, there never were than these at my feet, but I’ve known stronger and fiercer. But I’d tell thee another story of Boreth, and he related how one night in December as he watched, having for his protection only Boreth (his other dogs, Anos and Torbitt, being at home, one with a lame paw, the other with puppies), he had fallen asleep, though he knew robbers were about in the hills, especially in the winter months, he said; but I knew I could count on Boreth to awake me if one came to steal the sheep. Now what I’m about to say, Jacob, happened at the time of the great rain of December, when the nights are dark about us. I was sleeping in a sheltered place in the coign of a cliff, the flock was folded and Boreth was away upon his rounds, and it was then that two robbers stole into the cave. One was about to plunge his dagger into me, but I had time to catch his wrist and to whistle; and in a few seconds Boreth leapt upon the robber that was seeking to stab me. He bit his neck and shoulder; and then, leaving that robber disabled, he attacked the robber’s mate, and it was wonderful how he crept round and round in the darkness, biting him all the time, and then pursuing the two he worried them up the valley until his heart misgave him and he thought it wouldn’t be safe to leave me alone any longer. But Gorbotha would defend thee against a robber, Jacob said, and he called to the dog, but Gorbotha only growled at him. Have patience with them, Jesus rejoined; I’ll not feed them for three days, and after feeding them thou’lt take them to the hills, and when they have coursed and killed a jackal for thee it may be that they’ll accept thee for master. But these Thracians rarely love twice. Come, Jacob, and we’ll look into thy flock of lambs and take counsel together. They seem to be doing fairly well with thee — a bit tired, I dare say thou hast come a long way with them. We walked too fast, Jacob answered, saying he had had to go farther than he thought for in search of grass, and had found some that was worth the distance they had journeyed, for the lambs had fallen to nibbling at once. Fell to nibbling at once, did they? Jesus repeated When they’re folded with the ewes, thou’lt put into their jaws a stick to keep them from sucking. And without waiting for Jacob to answer he asked which of all these lambs he would choose to keep for breeding from. Jacob pointed out first one and then another; but Jesus shook his head and showed him a lamb which Jacob had not cast his eyes over and said: one may not say for certain, but I shall be surprised if he doesn’t come into a fine, broad-shouldered ram, strong across the loins and straight on his legs, the sort to get lambs that do well on these hills. And thou’lt be well advised to leave him on his dam another hundred days; shear him, for it will give him strength to take some wool from him, but do not take it from his back, for he will want the wool there to protect him from the sun. And all the first year he will skip about with the ewes and jump upon them, but it will be only play, for his time has not yet come; in two more years he’ll be at his height, serving ten ewes a day; but keep him not over-long; thou must always have some new rams preparing, else thy flock will decline. The ram thou seest on the right is old, and must soon be replaced. But the white ram yonder is still full of service: a better I’ve never known. The white ram is stronger than the black, though the black ewe will turn from him and seek a ram of her own colour. I’ve known a white ram so ardent for a black ewe that he fought the black ram till their skulls cracked. Master, it is well to listen to thee, Jacob interrupted, for none knows sheep like thee, but as none will ever give me charge of a flock again, thy teaching is wasted upon me. Look to the ewes’ teeth, Jacob, and to their udders; see that the udders are sound. Master, never before didst thou mock at me, who am for my misfortunes the mocking-stock of all these fields. In what have I done wrong? That my lambs are a bit tired is all thou hast to blame me for to-day. Jacob, I’m not mocking at thee, but looking forward a little, for time is on thy side and will soon put thee in charge of a flock again. Time is on my side, Jacob repeated. If I understand thee rightly, Master, thy meaning is, that the hills are beginning to weary thee. Look into my beard, Jacob, and see how much grey hair is in it, and my gait is slower than it used to be, a stiffness has come upon me that will not wear out, and my eyes are not as keen as they were, and when I see in thee a wise shepherd, between the spring and autumn, it may be that Hazael, our president, at my advice, will entrust my flock to thy charge.

  CHAP. XXX.

  SO THOU THINKEST, Eliab, that the autumn rains will make an end of him. And maybe of thee too, Bozrah, Eliab returned. A hard life ours is, even for the young ones. Hard bread by day and at night a bed of stones, a hard life from the beginning one that doesn’t grow softer, and to end in a lion’s maw at fifty is the best we can hope for. For us, perhaps, Bozrah answered; but Jesus will go up to the cenoby among the rocks and die amongst the brethren reading the Scriptures. If the autumn rains don’t make an end of him, Eliab interjected testily, as if he did not like his forecast of Jesus’ death to be called into question. As I was saying, a shepherd’s life is a hard one, and when the autumn rains make an end of him, the brethren will be on the look-out for another shepherd, and there’s not one amongst them that would bring half the flock entrusted to him into the fold at the end of the year. The best of us lose sheep: what with ——

  The flock will go to Jacob, the lad he’s been training to follow him ever since his friend was killed, Havilah remarked timidly. Eliab and Bozrah raised their eyes, and looked at Havilah in surprise, for a sensible remark from Havilah was an event, and to their wonder they found themselves in agreement with Havila
h. The flock would go to Jacob without doubt. Of course, Havilah cried, excited by the success of his last remark, he be more than fifty. Thou mightst put five years more to the fifty and not be far wrong, Bozrah interposed. Havilah was minded to speak again, but his elders’ looks made him feel that they had heard him sufficiently. Now, Bozrah, how many years dost thou make it since Joseph of Arimathea was killed? How many years? Bozrah repeated. I can’t tell thee how many years, but many years.... Stay, I can mark the date down for thee. It was about ten years before Theudas (wasn’t that his name?) led the multitude over these hills. A great riot that was surely — fires lighted at the side of the woods for the roasting of our lambs, and many’s the fine wood that was turned to blackened stems and sad ashes in those days. It comes back to me now, Eliab interjected. Theudas was the name. I’d forgotten it for the moment. He led the multitude to Jordan, and while he was bidding the waters divide to let him across the Romans had his head off. It was nigh ten years before that rioting Gaddi’s partner was killed in Jerusalem. I believe thee to be right, Bozrah replied, and they talked of the different magicians and messiahs that were still plaguing the country, stirring them up against the Romans. But, cried Bozrah suddenly, the story comes back to me. Not getting any news of his friend, Jesus left his flock with Jacob, and came down to the pass between the hills where the road descends to the lake to inquire from the beggars if they had seen Gaddi’s partner on his way to Jerusalem or Jericho, and seeing the lepers and beggars gathering about Jesus, I came down to hear what was being said, but before I got as far I saw Jesus turn away and walk into the hills. It was from the beggars and lepers that I heard that Joseph had been killed in the streets of Jerusalem. Thou knowest how long beggars take to tell a story; Jesus was far away before they got to the end of it, simple though it was. I’d have gone after him if they’d been quicker. More of the story I don’t know. It was just as thou sayest, mate, Eliab answered, and thou’lt bear me out that it was some months after, maybe six or seven, that Jesus was seen again leading the flock. I remember the day I saw him, for wasn’t I near to rubbing my eyes lest they might be deceiving me — I remember, Eliab continued, it comes back to me as it does to thee, for within two years he had gathered another handsome flock about him. A fine shepherd, Havilah said. None better to be found on the hills. Thou speakest well, Eliab answered him, and for thee to speak well twice in the same day is well-nigh a miracle. Belike thou’lt awake one morning to find thyself the Messiah Israel is waiting for, so great is thy advancement of late in good sense. Havilah turned aside, and Eliab, divining his wounded spirit, sought to make amends by offering him some bread and garlic, but Havilah went away, a melancholy, heavy-shouldered young man, one that, Eliab said, must feel life cruelly, knowing himself as he must have done from the beginning to be what is known as a good-for-nothing. And it was soon after Havilah’s departure that Jesus returned to the shepherds and, stopping in front of Eliab and Bozrah, he said: I’ve come back, mates, to give you my thanks for many a year of good-fellowship. So the time has come for us to lose thee, mate, Eliab answered. We are sorry for it, though it isn’t altogether unlocked for. We were saying not many moments ago, Bozrah interjected, that the life on the hills is no life for a man when he has gone fifty, and thou’lt not see fifty again: no, and not by three years, Jesus answered. It was just about fifty years that the feeling began to come over me that I couldn’t fight another winter, and to think of Jacob, who is waiting for a flock, and he may as well have mine during my life as wait for my death to get it. Better so, said Eliab, whose wont it was to strike his word in whenever the speaker paused. He did not always wait for the speaker to pause, and this trick being known to Bozrah, he said, and by all accounts thou hast made a true shepherd of him, passing over to him all thy knowledge. A lad of good report, Jesus answered, who had fallen on a hard master, a thing that has happened to all of us in our time, Bozrah interjected. He’s not the first that fell out of favour, for that his ewes hadn’t given as many lambs as they might have done. Nor was there anything of neglect in it, but such a bit of ill luck as might run into any man or any man might run up against. He was told, said Eliab, who could not bear anyone to tell a story but himself, that though he were to bring the parts of the sheep the wolf had left behind to his master he would have to seek another master. Such severity frightens the shepherd, and the wolf smells out the frightened shepherd, Jesus said, and he told his mates that he had not found Jacob lacking in truthfulness nor in natural discernment, and he asked them to give all their protection to Jacob, who will, he said, go forth in charge of our flock to-morrow.